Italian Decorative Iron Work 
decorative design of vine sprays, acanthus leaves, 
flowers, inscriptions and even heraldic emblems. 
The oldest iron screen of this character in Florence 
is that enclosing the altar of S. Miniato in the 
church of that name. We know from contemporary 
documents that one hundred golden florins was paid 
for it by Madonna Lena, the widow of Banco 
Botticini, and that it was made by Pietruccio di 
Betto, a Sienese smith, in 1338. Further, there 
exists a lunette in quatrefoil above the door of 
the Spanish Chapel which it is believed was exe¬ 
cuted together with the rest of the ornamentation 
in 1366. However, still more important is the 
grating that separates the sacristy of S. Croce 
from the Rinuccini Palace. The chapel is entered 
by a pointed archway, closed halfway by a beautiful 
iron gate, which for choice workmanship surpasses 
all that can be done to-day, notwithstanding the 
greater perfection attained in the art of fusing. 
The inscription, that forms a species of hem to a 
piece of rich embroidery, is written in raised and 
gilt Longobard characters and gives us the date, 
1371. The quatrefoil flanks, nevertheless, are a 
little too large and massive when compared with 
the marvelous delicacy of the real gate which, 
formed like a Gothic window, is a faithful reproduc¬ 
tion of one of the double lancet windows of Or S. 
Michele. 
More elegant and better proportioned, although 
more roughly worked, is the fourteenth century 
grating of the Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel in S. 
Trinita whose design of thirty large squares of 
quatreloils, surmounted by a cornice of delicately 
pierced iron, picked out with vine and acanthus 
leaves, is attributed to Lorenzo Monaco. How 
greatly the use of wrought iron in decorative archi¬ 
tecture had increased is proved by the great masters 
who did not despise to help on the work of the black¬ 
smiths. Even Michelangelo himself is a case in 
point, for in 1506 he made for the Medici Palace the 
model of a kneeling window that quickly became 
common in Florence. 
{To be continued) 
WINDOW SCREEN, S. M. NOVELLA, FLORENCE 
43 
